I have felt the urgency of this threat since the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was in H.S. It was the reason I came to Russia in 2016 to find out the truth about those Russians. It was after my return that I published my feature documentary, Thirty Seconds to Midnight. You see, I didn’t believe the Bureau of Atomic Scientist’s predictions. Doomsday was much closer then, and it is even closer today!
But, what I realized was that Americans had become complacent about the danger of nuclear war, but more importantly, Americans believed in their exceptionalism, god’s favored nation, a shining city on a hill, and all the lies about spreading Freedom and Democracy around the world.
So, I have taken a different approach and that is to expose the myth of American exceptionalism beginning with the arrival of the white, European colonialists that came to the Americas in the 15th Century. I believed that if Americans could see the truth of their entire history, they might wake up and stop supporting the war machine, and their government!
That history can be summed up neatly this way: the entire history of the United States has been one of genocide, the theft of land, resources, and labor (slavery), and this has been to entire story of the Unites States to the present day when America’s “destiny” has all life on the planet on the brink of extinction. And, it is never more obvious than it is today with Donald Trump and his unhinged acts of unrestrained violence and threats on the entire world, but especially with Ukraine and Iran.
I’m not at all hopeful that this is possible. My own children have all but disowned me because of my beliefs and because I have chosen to live in Russia and continue to tell the truth about the USA and the truth about Russia. People in the USA and across the EU do not feel the urgency of the threat of nuclear extinction! Frightening people stopped working with “duck and cover.” That’s why I believe it is important for Americans to come to grips with the truth about their entire history and who they are in light of the never ending wars and militarism of their country. Until that myth, I prefer to call it a series of lies, is exploded and revealed for what it is, nothing will change in the USA.
At the end of the film, Dr. Helen Caldicott finished with this haunting quote: “Are we an evolutionary aberrant, designed in an evolutionary sense not to survive?” I would add, “sure looks like it!”
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